Kung Fu Hustle online game in development

Going back to Sony Online Entertainment’s press event last week, the game that surprised me the most was an online fighting game based on Kung Fu Hustle. It’s being developed by SOGA, SOE’s Taiwan studio, specifically for Asia. Stephen Chow, the director of the movie, is assisting in the game’s development, which was a little surprising. Kung Fu Hustle is going to be free to play… sort of, you can play a few matches for free, but if you lose you have to buy an item to continue as if you were putting a token into an arcade machine. The footage I saw was preliminary, but it was in 3D and the video reminded me of PowerStone with much better martial arts moves. It’s coming out in Asia for the PC this year and a US release is speculative. There is also a chance it is going to come out for consoles, perhaps the PS3 or the PSP, but that is still in concept stages.